Stealth Layoffs Revealed?

I’ve been spending some time gathering law school faculty data from the Official Guide for future posts. I still have to Reinhart my Rogoffs, but I think the numbers I’ve entered are accurate. Here’s a quick-and-dirty history of full-time law school faculty since 1998.

Noticeably, the number has dropped in fall 2012.

I bring this up in part thanks to Paul Campos’ post on law school budget deficits. The question I asked myself is: To what extent are these deficits caused by shrinking class sizes and to what extent by far larger faculty than in the past? Put differently, if law schools pared down their headcounts to what they were in 1999, would they be able to continue to function? It may mean the difference between law school life and doom.

Behold:

This chart excludes the Puerto Rico law schools too, by the way, but it’s pretty clear that this year (2013) will see the first “real” full-time enrollment crunch relative to the 1999 base year. And yes, the average law school has 37 percent more full-time professors than in 1999; I’m astonished too.

And just which law schools appear to be shedding faculty?

Below is a table of the top 20 (’cause I know you lo~ve your lists) law schools by number of fewer full-time faculty. I have checked these numbers, so they are correct.

#

SCHOOL

FT FACULTY (FALL ’11)

FT FACULTY (FALL ’12)

CHANGE

1.

Indiana (Indianapolis)

42

8

-34

2.

Puerto Rico

23

4

-19

3.

New York Law School

70

57

-13

4.

St. John’s

52

39

-13

5.

La Verne

19

8

-11

6.

California-Hastings

67

57

-10

7.

Stetson

58

48

-10

8.

Catholic

52

43

-9

9.

Florida Coastal

69

60

-9

10.

Nevada

32

23

-9

11.

Hamline

34

26

-8

12.

San Diego

55

47

-8

13.

Seton Hall

49

41

-8

14.

Texas

83

75

-8

15.

Georgia State

50

43

-7

16.

New Hampshire

21

14

-7

17.

Pace

48

41

-7

18.

Roger Williams

27

20

-7

19.

Golden Gate

36

30

-6

20.

McGeorge

49

43

-6

Caveat #1: It’s pretty clear that some schools are really bad at reporting their faculty information to the ABA. I seriously doubt Indianapolis only had eight full-time professors on hand last fall. The number should probably be 38. Same goes for Puerto Rico. Both schools appeared to miss a digit when filling out the forms. La Verne, on the other hand, is more plausible. Recall that it had a severe enrollment crunch in 2012 because it’d lost its provisional accreditation the year before. Still, it’s pretty surprising that half the professors would be shown the door.

Caveat #2: The faculty numbers the schools report to the ABA tend to be somewhat volatile. It’s not uncommon for a school to report 5 more full-time professors one year and then lose them all the next. I doubt this is just sabbaticals, which are uncounted. [Mini-update: Some of these changes are also undoubtedly due to faculty moving between schools, which makes it harder to attribute declines (or increases) to law profs being shown the door.]

Bear these two points in mind as you gaze upon the table of law schools that added full-time professors to the rolls in fall 2012.

#

SCHOOL

FT FACULTY (FALL ’11)

FT FACULTY (FALL ’12)

CHANGE

1.

Charlotte

39

62

23

2.

Columbia

127

142

15

3.

South Dakota

1

15

14

4.

Denver

62

73

11

5.

Mississippi

17

28

11

6.

Georgetown

130

140

10

7.

Yale

61

71

10

8.

Harvard

116

125

9

9.

John Marshall (Atlanta)

40

49

9

10.

Phoenix

32

41

9

11.

Northwestern

76

84

8

12.

Pontifical Catholic

21

29

8

13.

Ohio State

38

45

7

14.

City University

34

39

5

15.

North Carolina

44

49

5

16.

Notre Dame

49

54

5

17.

Pepperdine

35

40

5

18.

Akron

26

30

4

19.

California-Los Angeles

72

76

4

20.

Duke

55

59

4

Again, there is no way South Dakota taught all its fall courses law-prof-of-one-style. I’m also dubious that even Columbia hired 15 more full-time professors. Then again, one-fourth of the schools here are in U.S. News‘ T-14, plus UCLA. Three are for-profits, though one for-profit was in the bottom-20 list.

Caveat #3: This is only full-time professors. There’s still a surge in part-timers and other types that I haven’t documented here.

Ultimately, law schools’ budgets are being pulled down by both filled offices and empty seats, but so far the data say it’s more the former than the latter.

Very useful, aggregate, broad swath *demand* side hours/pricing data for law firms. Interesting hourly pricing levels can be derived, as can “actually billed” hours/lawyer for different level firms within the law firm “prestige pyramid”

We’ve had a *lot* of JD supply side analysis – what the starving 40% need is a lot more demand-side analysis of the true, targeted demand for legal services.

We can’t undo a surplus of 600,000 JDs, but we can try and help them target areas of demand and profitability.